Regarding Israel's recent war with Hezbollah,
Assad said it would be impossible to prevent weapons from reaching the
militant organization due to its strong public support.

Enforcing
an arms embargo against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon is one of the main
tasks of a UN peacekeeping force which is assembling in Lebanon and along
its coast.

"As long as public support for Hezbollah is as high as
it today... then this is 'mission impossible'. The majority sees
resistance against Israel as legitimate. I advise the Europeans - don't
waste your time. Get to the root of the problem."

Relations
between the United States and Syria have long been strained as Washington
has designated Syria as a "state sponsor of terrorism" because of its
support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian militant
groups.

Beilin slams refusal to explore peace
opportunityArmy Radio on Sunday quoted Yossi Beilin as saying that
the government's refusal to explore a reported overture by Syria
represented "diplomatic dereliction of duty" and blindness on the part of
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Beilin was responding to news reports
that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mualem had said "The war in Lebanon has
created a genuine opportunity for peace and for solving the problems of
the region."

Beilin was also quoted as saying that Israel's refusal
to examine repeated statements from Damascus represented diplomatic
dereliction of duty.

"If Olmert continues to tread the path of
blindness and arrogance, this will lead us into another armed
confrontation," Beilin was quoted as telling the radio.

Mualem was
quoted at the weekend as saying that although an opportunity had been
created to deal with the Middle East conflict, he believed that the
international community would fail to take advantage of the opportunity,
as a result of Israeli pressure and American hegemony.

"I believe
that the opportunity will not be exploited and will wither, and the
dangers in the area will increase," Mualem was quoted as saying.

Mualem also reiterated Syria's opposition to the deployment of an
international force on the Syrian-Lebanese border, saying that Damascus
would oversee the frontier, long used as a route to channel arms to
Hezbollah.

U.S., EU policies brought Damascus attackIn
his interview, Assad also blamed the United States and its Middle East
policies for a recent failed attack on the U.S. embassy in
Damascus.

Four Syrians tried to blow up the embassy on September
12, but the plot failed after Syrian guards killed three of the assailants
in a shootout. The fourth man later died of his wounds.

"This seems
to have been the background of the attack, a reaction to America's policy
in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan," Assad was quoted by Der Spiegel
weekly as saying.

Syria's 40-year-old president was asked why the
United States should be considered at fault for an attack that Assad said
appeared to have been carried out by Syrians.

"Because they
contribute to hopelessness here, to silencing dialogue between cultures,"
he said.

Assad said data recovered from the computers of the
militants who carried out the attacks on the U.S. embassy and information
gathered in their environments indicated that they were isolated young
men, Al Qaida sympathizers from the suburbs of Damascus who called Osama
bin Laden "the lion of Islam".

After the attacks of September 11,
2001, Syria and the United States intensified their cooperation on
security issues and "together saved many American lives", Assad
said.

"Then the Iraq war emerged and America began to make many
mistakes," he said.

Assad said he had warned the United States that
it would win the war in Iraq but would then sink into a
quagmire.